


Lights Out

by Yeoyou



Series: First A Kiss [5]
Category: Metal Gear
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Post-Tanker, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 13:24:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9387110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeoyou/pseuds/Yeoyou
Summary: After the tanker goes down, after nearly dying in the freezing water of the Hudson, they only find solid ground in each other. [Snot Week, 5]





	

**Author's Note:**

> You didn't think it'd be all fluff and sunshine in this series? (okay, this was acutally supposed to be a fluffy "Snake kisses Hal goodnight because of nightmares"-story but it ...ah...changed course somewhat drastically...)

When the lights are out, the Hudson fills the room with crashing waves. They drown in darkness and dreams, fight against the pressure on their chests, the tightness of their lungs. The screams of the dying are their own.

Swallowing, smothering Night caresses their sleep, whispering lies and memories into their thoughts. It's hard to disentangle one from the other when both want to kill you.

The only solid ground, the only reliable certainty, they find in each other. Warm bodies, still alive, and breathing, and moving. Clinging to life and sanity with a stubborn desperation. Clinging to each other among the waves of terror washing over them in the dark.

The ice-cold water of the Hudson has baptized them both as new men, with new fears and new nightmares. Sleep becomes the enemy, to be avoided at all costs only they can't afford the price.

The scars are not all visible but they run deep and sometimes, too often, they are afraid they will lose themselves in the widening cracks.

Alone, each of them would have perished. They're as sure of that as of the fact that they're running for their lives, body and soul. They need each other to remind themselves of the past, the future, and the mission. To remind each other that they're human, and good, and alive. For the good memories. For the good dreams.

They watch over each other. When the lights are out.

***

The tension had been there before, of course. The increasingly affectionate teasing, lingering gazes and touches. Unspoken truths hanging heavy in the air between them. The signs were all there. It was a gradual change from the early respect that was the foundation of their partnership but that last step seemed a change too all encompassing, too momentous to dare. There was so much that needed consideration. And too much was at stake. The world is no easy weight resting on two pairs of shoulders.

So they danced on the thin line of a relationship that was neither just friendship nor yet anything else. If it was supposed to happen, they thought, it would. Ironically, despite the frequent dangers they faced, they felt sure that they had time. There was a deceptive security in the fact that they were still alive. A promise that everything would continue forever. The mission's goal seemed just that touch of unreachable that no end troubled their horizon.

In the end, life changed for them, forced them to adapt and rethink everything. The bubble burst among a soldier's last breath. The crack of a rip shattered everything in the struggle for life. And they were left broken among the pieces.

When their world shrunk once more, they were left with each other and their nightmares. Everything else was a whirl of danger. They had never led a normal life together but now things had fallen apart fast.

The coldness of the Hudson stayed with them for days, weeks, months; buried deep in their bones. The shivering never seemed to stop. The only warmth they still found was that of lips on lips, skin on skin. There was desperation and hunger in those first kisses, in grappling limbs and tearing cloth. But there was also love. The love that had been waiting patiently in their hearts for them to take that final step and when the step was a stumbling and the decision a necessity, it shrugged and followed and caught them at the end of it.

When the coldness slowly seeped from their bones and flesh and skin, when the terror became fear and the fear became wariness, it was there to light them home. When the hunger that blinded them gave back their sight, it was there to smile for them. Desperate grips turned into gentle caresses under its watchful care. And suddenly their hesitation and waiting seemed so foolish. Their trust in time naïve. But they were grateful for their second chance, the dance of delay finally giving way to steps in the right direction. The only one they could follow. The only light in a world screaming for their blood.

When the lights were out, it was love that shone for them.


End file.
